


The Only Way to Hurt Me

by Ordered_Chaos



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drinking, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post 12x13, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 06:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9979946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ordered_Chaos/pseuds/Ordered_Chaos
Summary: Dean was worried about Crowley.Occurs right after episode 12x13





	

Crowley raged.

He shouted at his underlings, low-level demons who fled his presence quickly.

He bloodied his knuckles against Lucifer’s jaw. He kept hitting him until he couldn’t tell what was Lucifer’s blood, and what was his own.

He took out his handkerchief and wiped the blood away. Flexed his hand and watched new drops fall to the ground.

He was the King. The king of Hell itself. He had R&D people that could create bullets out of an angel blade, could replicate the Cage itself. But he couldn’t go back. He couldn’t risk everything for one person. Time travel was too messy.

He couldn’t save his son.

_Rowena_.

His spiteful, manipulative skank of a witch mother. She was going to die. She had chosen who would kill her the moment she cast the spell that had kept Crowley from rescuing Gavin. However long it took, she would die. And he would smile.

His phone rang.

Hell’s interior returned to its dismal blacks and grays. For the last several minutes it had been entirely red. Crowley pulled out his phone. Squirrel calling. He silenced it and put it back in his pocket. He was in no mood to deal with the Winchesters now.

A few moments later he felt a Summoning. He scoffed. Dean wanted to talk to him so badly. He should show up with his army and take over their clubhouse once and for all. They did have some useful toys there.

But instead he sat, clenching and unclenching his scabbed hand.

When he pulled out his phone, he had four missed calls.

Somewhat surprised by this, Crowley called Dean back. Probably Moose was dying again for some reason.

“Crowley!” Dean said after the second ring.

“You better need something important.”

“I don’t need anything. I was just….” He trailed off.

“I’m waiting, Squirrel.”

“I’m calling to see if you’re okay,” Dean said in that ‘if-I-act-angry-enough-maybe-you-won’t-realize-how-much-I-care-about-you’ tone he used all the time on Castiel. It made Crowley feel sick.

“Squirrel, you shouldn’t have,” he heard himself saying. “I might start thinking I’m part of the family.” His voice sounded hollow in his own ears.

“Do you want to come to the bar in Lebanon, and we’ll have a drink?” Dean asked, sounding as though he was reading the words from a script.

“Why do you care?” Crowley asked. He didn’t have the energy to banter. “What do you want?”

“Look, man. I’m just being a decent person. You lost your son.”

“I’m a demon. You think I cared about some goody-two-shoes who killed himself to save a few low-lifes?”

“I saw your face. What Rowena did…. That was rough.”

“She’ll pay,” Crowley said softly. He clenched his hand so hard one of the scabs cracked. New blood filled the cut.

“I bet. I won’t get in your way.”

That was shocking, but Crowley appreciated it. “You couldn’t if you wanted to.”

Dean gave a breathy laugh. “So about that drink?”

“You’re buying.”

“Just the first one,” Dean bargained.

“You’re assuming I’ll stay for a second.” And he hung up before Dean could reply.

\------

Crowley watched Dean enter the bar and followed a few minutes later. This was one of Lebanon’s crustier establishments. Not Crowley’s usual pick, and as far as he knew, not Dean’s either.

He joined Dean at the bar, where he had just ordered two whiskey on the rocks.

“Oh, good,” Dean said. “Was afraid I’d have to drink both of these.”

Crowley snatched one and downed it. “Happy, Squirrel?”

“Look, man, no one’s forcing you to be out here.”

“You couldn’t if you tried.”

“I know. But geez, Crowley. You look like crap. What happened to your hand?”

“I cut myself shaving,” he sneered. “Like you care, Squirrel.”

Dean gave a put-upon sigh that made Crowley want to snap someone’s neck.

“Look,” Dean said. “I’m really sorry about Gavin.”

Crowley gestured to the barkeeper and immediately downed the two shots given to him.

Dean said nothing, and for a while they just sat in silence. For once, Crowley was drinking more than Dean. But he couldn’t really think of a reason to slow down.

\------

“I’m going to kill her.”

“She knows.”

“She better. It was because of Oskar.”

“Oskar?”

“Her lover-boy. The one who wasn’t me.”

Was he really drunk enough to be saying this? He sounded like a jilted lover. And he was talking about his _mother_.

“If there’s one thing I get, it’s parents being dicks,” Dean said.

\------

“Why’d you call me, Squirrel?”

Dean shrugged. He was nowhere near as drunk as Crowley, but he was being a bit more honest than usual.

“Not that I’m not enjoying our date,” Crowley drawled.

“You’re too drunk for this to be a date.”

Crowley laughed, and it felt like his throat was burning. It hurt.

“I guess…. I was thinking…. You shouldn’t’ve been alone.”

Crowley stared at Dean for several long moments. Suddenly he didn’t feel drunk at all.

\------

“I’m the King of Hell.”

“You said that four times already.”

Crowley slammed a fist into the bar. It was almost closing time. The low-lifes around them were dragging their passed out friends toward the door. Crowley ordered another.

“Why are you fixating on that?” Dean asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Because I should be able to save him.”

Dean stared at a spot on the bar and said nothing at all.

\------

“I’m not gonna wake up in a Devil’s Trap, am I?” Crowley asked.

His arm was over Dean’s shoulder as Dean half-carried him toward the Impala. Dean was considerably less drunk than he was, which was good because Crowley wanted to wake up wrapped around a tree even less than he wanted to wake up inside a trap.

“Nah,” Dean grunted, shifting his weight so he could open the passenger’s door. “That’d be a dick move.”

“How romantic,” Crowley muttered.

“Shut up.” For all the gruffness in his voice, when Dean lowered Crowley into the car, he was exceedingly gentle.

\------

He woke up the next morning with a murderous headache and a bottle of aspirin on the coffee table next to the couch. There was a small sticky note with a hand-drawn cartoon of a Devil’s Trap, and the word “boo.” He narrowed his eyes at it, pulled it off, and put it in his pocket. He took a handful of aspirin and left the bunker without seeing anyone.

\------

He got a text from Dean later that day.

_How’s the head?_

_Fine_.

_You drank half that bar. You better pay me back._ He could hear the whine in Dean’s voice even through the text. He didn’t dignify it with a response.

A few hours later he pulled his phone out again.

_Thanks_ , he sent to Dean.

Just a minute later he got the reply. _Yeah. ‘Course, man._

Crowley rolled his eyes and put his phone away.

\------

He was sitting on his throne later that night, absently running a finger over his repaired knuckles, when a snippet of conversation from last night came back to him.

_“I’m stronger now,” he told Dean. “He was the one person whose death could hurt me.”_

_“That doesn’t mean you’re stronger,” Dean said. “Just means you’re closer to breaking.”_

_Crowley paused in his contemplation of his newest drink. He’d lost count some time ago._

_“Trust me,” Dean said._

_“Well,” Crowley said. “I guess you’re the expert in losing family members.”_

_Dean flinched, but turned the motion into a toast. “To our bullshit families.”_

Crowley snapped a glass of Craig into his hand. He glowered into the dark liquid and then raised it to the empty room.

“To our bullshit families,” he said, and drank to Gavin’s heroic, misled stupidity.

“And to you, Mummy,” he said. And he drank to Rowena’s approaching death.


End file.
